Following Swire Property, Kowloon will lay out a network of fiber optics in the Harbour City which consists of ten commercial blocks. This service is targeted at some small and medium sizes of enterprizes such that those enterprises can enjoy high-tech service with less cost.

Cheung Tung Nam, a marketing supervisor of New Telecom, said that the network of fiber optics which connected the ten commercial buildings can effectively provide the 4Mbit/s transmission of information and vidoes. The network can speed up an online service with the provision of electronic email, homepage storage, system managment and servers storage.

Li Yuk Fong, the executive director of Kowloon, disclosed that due to the increase of the demand for high technology, the provision of fiber optics for commercial buildings is necessary to strengthen the competitiveness; the project, costing thousands ofmillions HK dollar, has been designed for a half year.

She explained that since the high-tech talents in Hong Kong is lacking, an individual installation of high-tech facility is expensive enough to discourage some small and medium sizes of enterprizes from using high-tech facility. If the building is installed with fiber optics, users can enjoy those facilities easily by paying rent.

At present, a half of harbour city's tenants is big multi-national enterprises while another half is small and medium size of enterprises. For small and medium size of enterprises, a majority are trading firms which need high-tech facilities to achieve electronic commerce. Now the fiber optics is well installed in the buildings, so tenants can use it conveniently.

The minimum fee for the use of those facilites is HK$2400. Li Yuk fong emphasized that such price is very competitable.

Regarding the phase 2 of the sixth Harbor Wai block within the Harbour City, it is planned that officies will be put into the market for renting after the Chinese New year. The monthly rent for each square foot is between HK$20 and HK$30. Now some big tenants are interested in those offices. But the Group has decided not to sell the highest floor and keep it for its own use.

The article is translated from the original one published in Hong Kong Economic Journal